or livelihood.
And the thought which was echoing round and round in her head was: What’s going to happen to your precious business now, if your worst fears are confirmed?
The house felt cold when she entered and she went straight into the bathroom where the pregnancy testing kit she’d bought was still sitting unused next to the toothpaste. For a moment she just stared at it before pulling it off the shelf with hands which were shaking, knowing that she couldn’t put off the moment of truth any longer.
Her heart was pounding as she tore open the cardboard box and as she crouched over the loo, attempting to pee onto the narrow little stick, she thought how surreal this felt. This is what millions of women all over the world have done, she told herself. Were probably doing even now. But she’d bet all the money in her purse that not one of them was doing it as the result of a one-night stand with an empty-eyed sheikh who’d left her without even bothering to say goodbye.
She didn’t need to see the blue line on the stick to know that the test was positive. She’d known that in her heart all along. Forcing herself to make a cup of hot, sweet tea, she took it into the sitting room and sat drinking it as the light began to fade from the sky. One by one, the pinpoints of stars began to speckle the sky and all she could think about was the single fact which was going to change her life for ever.
She was pregnant.
Pregnant by the sheikh.
She was going to have an unplanned baby by a man who despised her and all she stood for. Ella put down her empty teacup and closed her eyes. It didn’t really get much worse than that, did it?
Yet it was strange what tricks the mind could play. For a few weeks more, Ella pretended it wasn’t happening. She let the secret grow inside her head as well as inside her belly and she was slim enough for it not to notice. It was as if, by not telling anyone else, she could almost convince herself that it wasn’t happening. But aligned with this lack of logic was the overwhelming desire to tell someone, to unburden herself to someone who might understand.
Not her mother. Definitely not her weak, romantic mother. Not her sisters either—not if she didn’t want word to get out. And definitely not her father. Ella shuddered. Her father would go mental if he found out.
Which left Ben, her brother. Brilliant Ben, who, for all his reputation as a control-freak tycoon, was fiercely protective when it came to the women in his family. He was currently living in some splendour in a beach house on the island of Santina while he worked on a charity project. Before she had time to change her mind, Ella picked up the phone and dialled his number.
‘Ben Jackson.’
‘Ben, it’s Ella.’
The rather abrupt note in his voice gave way to one of softening affection. ‘Ella,’ he murmured. ‘Who I still haven’t quite forgiven for leaving the island in such dramatic fashion after the engagement party. Why the hell didn’t you come to the lunch the next day? I was looking forward to a catch-up.’
‘Actually, the reason I didn’t come to the lunch is sort of the same reason why I’m ringing you now.’
His voice was teasing. ‘Am I supposed to guess what that is, or are you going to cut to the chase?’
Ella swallowed, instinctively knowing that this was the kind of news no brother wanted to receive. And that there was no way of saying it which could possibly lessen its impact. ‘Ben, I’m pregnant.’
There was a pause.
‘But you don’t have a boyfriend, Ella—or at least, you didn’t the last time I spoke to you. Which happened to be at the engagement party. What’s going on?’ His voice roughened in a way she hadn’t heard it do for years. ‘Who’s the father?’
Ella felt stricken with shame, wishing that she’d never made this wretched call, knowing that she was about to fall off her sainted little-sister pedestal, big-time. But telling someone made it real, and that was the sorry truth of it—it was real. She couldn’t hide from the reality any longer. And it was pointless trying to lie or to make the truth more palatable by putting some kind of gloss on it. Dreading her brother’s reaction to her next piece of news, she licked her lips.
‘His name is Hassan Al Abbas.’
There was another brief silence, and when he spoke, Ben’s voice had taken on an entirely different tone. ‘The sheikh?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘You’re having the baby of one of the most powerful men in the Middle East?’
Ella shivered. It sounded even more daunting when he put it like that. ‘So it would seem.’ She heard her brother utter a few terse expletives. ‘Ben, don’t swear!’
‘What do you expect me to do?’ he retorted savagely. ‘Have you thought about what you’re letting yourself in for? Don’t you know what a reputation he has? Hell, Ella, I didn’t even know you two were an item.’
‘We’re not!’ she put in fiercely. ‘We are most emphatically not. We … we met. We fought and then … then …’
‘I think I can work out the rest for myself,’ he said quickly. ‘The question is what you’re going to do about it?’
Ella’s hand strayed to her stomach. A still-flat stomach, it was true, but not for much longer. Deep inside her was growing a tiny embryo which was half that black-eyed brute of a man, but also half her. Half Jackson. Bobby and Julie’s first grandchild. A first nephew or niece for her brothers and sisters. A new life about to enter her crazy and dysfunctional family. A terrible pain clutched at her heart as she thought of the heavy burden of responsibility which now hung over her, but knowing, too, that there was only one thing she could do. And fast following on that pain came a powerful wave of protectiveness. A determination that something good would come out of this whole mess.
‘I’m going to keep the baby,’ she said fiercely.
‘Good.’ Ben let out a long and ragged sigh. ‘That’s good. And what about Al Abbas? What does he say about it all?’
‘I haven’t told him. And he won’t want to be the father, Ben.’ Her voice was flat as she remembered the way he’d snuck out of her bed, like a thief in the middle of the night. ‘He doesn’t even like me!’
There was a pause. ‘So are you going to tell him?’
Again, she thought of Hassan. Not the man who had seduced her with such ease and shown her what true pleasure could be. But the other side of that same man. She remembered the strange, cold emptiness she’d seen in his eyes and a shiver rippled down her spine. ‘I don’t know,’ she said desperately.
‘You know that it’ll be irrevocable once you do, and that you’ll have little control over what happens next?’ he warned. ‘That not only is he unimaginably wealthy, he is also an autocrat. Men like that are possessive about what is theirs, and he will see this baby as belonging to him. He’s ruthless, sis—make no mistake about that.’
Ben’s words told her nothing she didn’t already know and part of her wanted to steer clear of Hassan in order to protect herself and her baby. Ella felt the drumming of her heart as she worked out what she wanted to do. If she could wave a magic wand,
